


Running From Empty

by decayinghorizon



Series: in the aftermath [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Eating Disorders, Gen, Leaving Home, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 14:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16477736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decayinghorizon/pseuds/decayinghorizon
Summary: Jughead leaves, and refuses to let the past find him.





	Running From Empty

**Author's Note:**

> I'm ignoring a lot of canon but when wasn't I ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> Set in college, inspired a lot by the song [Close That Door by Mansions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAbxx2V3wGI) and by That One Line™ Archie has about them going to school in New York.  
> it's been a year and a half+ since the last part of this but I hope someone enjoys it anyway! <3

Jughead's late class lets out early, somehow. It never lets out early, his ancient teacher always droning on until the last possible second, usually in the middle of some sort of tangent about the youths of today and how underappreciated classic literature is. Today, though, he seemed to have run out of steam, lost for words after someone raised their hand to ask his opinion on Fifty Shades of Grey. So Jughead leaves class just as the sun is nearly set, happy to avoid the chill that comes with the fall nights. He loves this time of day, especially at this time of year, the crunch of the leaves and the smell in the air in the low light making everything seem elevated and magical. He considers setting a story here, how much his own story has changed. It's been a while since he's written fiction. Since he's written anything but his own misery.

Lost in his thoughts, he crosses campus quickly, but then stands in the main hall of his dorm, hesitating. Minutes pass, and he finally decides to do something he's been avoiding: check his mailbox. And under a pile of junk and catalogs addressed mostly to 'current resident', there's a single letter addressed to him. One nondescript white envelope with a generic corner store stamp and a Riverdale return address. An address he knows too well, written in a messy scrawl he knows too well, underneath a name he'd rather not see. So much for his good mood. He immediately backtracks, locking the junk mail back inside the box for the time being, throwing the front door of the building open as he digs in his pocket for the book of matches he swiped from a local diner. He fumbles them open, nearly dropping the thing as he awkwardly strikes a match. He holds it to the unopened envelope, and when he drops the whole burning thing into a sidewalk trashcan and watches the flame overtake everything inside he feels a sharp, familiar pang for home; the community he'd felt with the Serpents, the late nights spent wandering the streets looking for fights and friends, something to burn to keep warm. He thought of how far they'd come and how far they'd fallen, how many times they'd repeated the same pattern of highs and lows in a constant cycle that always cost them dearly. The thought soured as he turned it over in his head, because that cycle would never, ever end, and the nostalgia wasn't worth the scars the Serpents had left him with.  
No kind of nostalgia had ever treated him kindly, always acting more like a kick to the ribs than a fond embrace. But still he endlessly romanticized bad situations, clacked them out on typewriter keys to make it seem beautiful and tragic instead of just plain tragic. He twisted words like a knife in his gut, a blade left inside to staunch the blood that would pour from every wound if he ever let it.  
Sometimes it was better to pretend things were better than they were. Sometimes you had to set your past on fire to make way for the future. If it had to be literally, well, maybe he'd invest in a lighter. 

When asked about his past, he lied. He'd admit to living in Riverdale all his life, but he left out the trailer parks, the homelessness, the arrest of his father, the Serpents, Jason Blossom. In his new story, the murder was merely background to his normal high school life, a distant chaos he knew only from gossip, school assemblies, and the nightly news. He'd kept his head down, he'd excelled in English class, and he'd spent all of his free time at Pop's with his best friends. The fight with Archie had never happened, scandals didn't exist, he was just a small town boy with a mundane past and not much to say. In reality, he'd jumped at the chance to reinvent himself, to leave everything that ever brought him down receding in the back window of the bus that brought him to freedom. That included Archie. It included the nights they spent fighting, it included their recoveries and relapses, it included every good time they'd had despite everything. Archie was all or nothing for him, so he'd picked nothing and left. 

It wasn't really planned, but it wasn't a surprise either, not to him. Jughead knew he couldn't stay forever, couldn't leech the Andrews kindness for any longer, couldn't stand waking up to Riverdale with all its secrets and tragedies and pretend he was fine or that he was ever getting better. So when he got that acceptance email, he took his chance and ran and let his past fade to black, let the credits roll over a Jughead that no longer existed.  
In class the professors all called out Forsythe from their attendance sheets, and he didn't correct them. He didn't want a tie to his old name, didn't want those dots to connect, didn't want the questions or pitiful looks if anyone ever found out the truth. 

So he burned the letters, every time. Every one of them unopened. And every time he felt that sickness again, raced back inside and fell to his knees on his bathroom floor, puked up his guts and felt hollow like he always used to. And it almost felt worth it.

Archie was writing letters. He was writing them, and smudging ink and crumpling pages and tearing them to pieces. He was wasting envelopes and stamps, sometimes getting all the way to the mailbox before he finished picking his words apart in his head and decided they weren't good enough for Jughead, that he wasn't communicating himself right, that he would have to start over. The trashcan beside his desk was overflowing, his notebooks nearly empty, 3 pens out of ink. He still didn't know how to feel, he still didn't know what to say, he was angry and sad and lost and his thoughts were threatening to burst out of his head but wouldn't translate on paper.

Until they would. When the floodgates burst open, when he found the words and spilled his guts, he couldn't stop writing. He wrote through classes and during breaks and at the dinner table and through the night, unable to get to sleep until he ran out of coherent thoughts, and when he couldn't write it was all he thought about, words pulsing through him like a living thing, like blood in his veins, like a heartbeat. He wrote all the things he could never say, the secrets and feelings he never truly let himself show, the vulnerability he always tried so hard to hide. He wanted Jughead to know him, to know he still cared and missed him and wanted him back. He wanted to know Jughead was okay, that Jughead cared, that anything they had had ever meant anything.

He never got a reply. He'd had to beg to get Jughead's new address from FP, and it was all for nothing. His calls always went directly to voicemail, and he wondered if Jughead just didn't answer his phone or if he'd blocked his number. Maybe he'd just changed his number, disconnected, moved on. Archie stopped writing, or tried.  
He's staring at a blank page, remembering the time after that summer when he'd wished they could start with a clean slate and they'd ended up the messiest they'd ever been, the most broken people. 

They'd never really recovered, and he wonders if they ever would. If he would. If he should just say fuck it and make the drive out to New York, confront Jughead in person and make him talk to him. He wonders if it would be cruel to remind him of his past, all the mistakes they'd made, everything they'd endured. If he should let Jughead escape for good, let him have the clean slate and a clean break and never speak to him again, let his letters be lost and accept that it's over.

He doesn't know what to do. With his life, himself. He makes music in his dad's garage, goes to community college, fixes cars to pass the time, distract himself and make some cash, save it for some uncertain future. He doesn't know if he can ever put his past behind him, can't imagine a time where the things She did to him don't feel fresh and new, can't imagine a life free of fear or flashbacks. He doesn't know if he can stop worrying about Jughead. They were doing better when he left, but they were never doing well. They weren't there yet, and Archie thought they were in it for the long haul, but apparently he was the only one.

Jughead got a fresh start, and he was left in the dust. He wonders if his roots in Riverdale are too strong, if it would be refreshing or suffocating to leave the place he grew up, where all his happy memories and all his trauma coexist and meld together into one comfortable cage. Could he be someone new in a new place, or would his demons follow him, would nothing change? If he met the Jughead that left him, would he recognize him? 

They were questions he couldn't answer, they were letters in a mailbox destined to be burned, bridges to a past just out of reach.


End file.
